Setting the Record Straight
by fascinatingstranger
Summary: Why a stone wall, if you're an egg? It doesn't make sense...unless you know the whole story. This is my first try at writing fiction for children, part of an upcoming anthology tentatively titled, Stories Wrestled from an Angry Goose.


Setting the Record Straight

When I fell down from the wall, I landed off-balance on my left foot. My knee gave way, and the momentum threw me on toward the ground. My left hand connected first, and my wrist snapped like a stick, with a jagged end of bone erupting through the skin like a pencil through tissue paper.

But that's all that happened. Of course I screamed like a freaking banshee, spewed words you'll never find on my official page, and attempted to wrap my convex torso protectively around my bleeding joint; an act that was never destined to succeed. The palace EMTs rode out—taking their own sweet time, I might add—loaded me into a medic wagon and, using a route carefully chosen for its ruts and potholes, trundled me off to Urgent Care for several hours of painful poking, prodding, and pulling, followed eventually by a cast. And that's it. _Finis_. No omelet. No closed casket required. Honest to Pete, the garbage that gets printed in the name of literature.

As a matter of fact, I was never sitting on top of the wall in the first place. Look at me: how the heck would I, a freak of nature, make it to the top of a 6-foot stone wall? And even should some idiot decide to lean his ladder against the wall, what in the world would inspire me to climb up there and park my scrawny butt? Have you looked at that wall? Nothing but big, round lumps of smooth stone. And finally, say I did slip a cog and climb on up, and actually found a place to wedge my keister? What would I do then? The top of a stone wall isn't exactly one of the entertainment hot spots of the civilized world. Grunt, groan, and sweat your way on up, and for your trouble, you get a gluteus bruisimus and a panoramic view of somebody else's property. Thanks all the same.

But you're right to look confused. After all, I didn't bust my arm falling UP the wall.

Blame it on the king, his moron soldiers, and their noble steeds—a bunch of glue-factory refugees, purchased at great personal taxpayer cost. If they had real jobs, they wouldn't be wasting their time harassing innocent citizens. Ok…basically innocent. More or less. Really, who knew librarians had memories like elephants? I hate librarians. I don't even like books. Who needs books when you've got a tv?

Books were the last thing on my mind when I stopped in at the village library that morning to pick up my tax forms. I'm getting royally shafted again this year…but why should I complain? Heaven knows, I'm delighted to provide the King with a large portion of my hard-earned coin, so he can hire a few more cretins to preserve my personal freedoms. Anyhow, I stood at the checkout desk and looked idly around the room while I waited for an ancient harridan to favor me with her attention. The library was nothing much to look at: rows of books guarded by wrinkled gnomes with eyes that dared you to pull a book off a shelf. Meanwhile, my personal crone had located her forms and was searching for my name in her records.

"Dumpy," she muttered. "Dumpy?" She looked up at me. "There's no 'Dumpy' in here."

"It's Dump-TEE," I enunciated patiently. Resigned, I recited, "D-U-M-P-T-"

The last letter died on my lips. The harridan was gazing at me now, eyes slitted like a lizard's and lips pursed as she dragged my name through the bowels of her memory. "Dumpty…Dumpty…Hump-"

Suddenly, her head shot forward on her stringy neck until she was close enough to have eaten my nose for lunch. Her eyes widened and her voice, a strangled whisper, raked my ears.

"Humpty…Dumpty. I knew you'd be back someday! Where is it? Where is that book? I never forget a guilty face. Two weeks, I told you. Bring it back in two weeks. Keep it clean, keep it indoors, don't read it in the bathtub, and get it back here in two weeks! Where is it, you little thief?!"

At first I thought she'd gone nuts…just my luck she'd pull my number the day she popped her cork. Then I remembered…I'd barely been laid, practically just out of the old chute, when my teacher had brought me and my little egglet classmates to the library for "Book Day." I remembered the old biddy who'd lectured us endlessly before parting with her precious books: the same old reptile, minus a few hundred wrinkles. How was I supposed to keep track of a book for two whole weeks? I'd probably dropped it in the creek on the way back to school.

The crone was looking around wildly, probably for a security guard that she could call over to shake the loose change out of my pockets before arresting me. A guard approached as if summoned by sorcery, which he probably was. The basilisk in front of me broke her glare long enough to bark out an order, and I didn't wait for a second chance. I turned and ran for the door.

I needed some sort of weapon in case one of them came after me. A thick book sat on top of a wooden stand on my right, and I grabbed it as I sprinted for the main entrance. Big mistake. Glomming on to an unabridged dictionary is probably not the best strategy for speeding your departure. Remember that if you ever become a thief. Single-minded panic kept me moving, and I lumbered along toward the door like an aging linebacker headed for the last goal of his career.

The security alarm whooped once in my ear, and I was out the door, the hag and her hired muscle in full cry behind me. There was a roaring in my ears and my heart was hammering hard enough to crack my shell, but I couldn't make myself stop. I was on the lam from the local librarian!

The library building was situated at one end of a short street on the edge of the village. A wide creek blocked the other end of the street, spanned by an arched stone bridge opening into a grassy park, surrounded by—you guessed it—a six-foot stone wall. Escape waited on the other side…but how could I—middle-aged, out of breath, and noticeably egg-shaped—get over the wall? I needed some sort of step…something large…something thick…something like a dictionary.

Barely breaking stride, I hurled the dictionary to the foot of the wall and threw myself forward with what little strength I had left. I could hear the security goon shouting and the librarian screeching as they crossed the bridge and galloped madly toward the wall. I groped for a handhold as my foot found a jutting partway up the wall. Simultaneously, I pulled mightily with my hands and kicked upward to heave myself over the wall.

A bit too mightily, perhaps. I reached the top, and like the Energizer Bunny®, just kept on going. I came down off the other side of that wall like the proverbial hod of cement, landed off-balance on my left foot—and you know the rest of the story. Wham, crack, splinter. But certainly alive. And most definitely not an omelet.

In the end, I had to apologize publicly to the biddy and her muscle for running off with the dictionary…they were actually pretty decent about it, to be honest. Then I had to pay for both books—the one I'd messed up when I'd thrown it against the wall, plus the one I'd dropped in the creek a bazillion years ago—and perform one hundred hours of community service, picking up trash in the park. Not so easy to do with your arm in a cast. I got to admit, though—I got off pretty easy, considering the uproar I caused.

The moral of the whole story, of course, is—don't believe everything you read! And stay out of libraries. They'll bring you nothing but grief.


End file.
